Burke has a presence on Mars, in the form of the Mars rover named “Perseverance,” a name thought up by Alex Mather from Lake Braddock

Secondary School. On Feb. 18, at 12:55 p.m., the rover was lowered to the surface of Mars, making history and reigniting the pride by Mather who was the winner of "Name the Rover" essay contest last summer, which received 28,000 entries from K-12 students from every U.S. state and territory. In an excerpt from Mather’s essay, he summed up the efforts to go to Mars in his winning essay, "We are a species of explorers, and we will meet many setbacks on the way to Mars. However, we can persevere. We, not as a nation but as humans, will not give up."

After Mather got word that his essay was the winner, he was in front of TV cameras on more then one occasion and was the guest of NASA for the rocket launching that would carry the rover to Mars.

On Mars, the Perseverance's drill will cut intact rock cores that are about the size of a piece of chalk and will place them in sample tubes that it will store until the rover reaches an appropriate drop-off location, NASA said. The Perseverance rover has 19 cameras that will deliver images of the landscape in detail. The other parts of the spacecraft involved in entry, descent and landing carry four additional cameras, potentially allowing engineers to put together a high-definition view of the landing process, NASA said.

To watch the spacecraft, access the live feed here https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive